Mary+Lareau


 * SUMMARY: Mary Lareau, age 15, died in November of 1918 from an abortion perpetrated in Denver, CO.**

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was taking its toll on Colorado, with with nine deaths reported in a single 24-hour period, from November 11 to 12. This brought the total for the state up to 430. The Ute Indians at the Ignacio agency were being particularly hard hit, with fully a quarter of the 400 inhabitants sickened and a dozen of them dead by November 22. So frightening was the epidemic that showing any signs of sickness in a Denver movie theater would be enough to get you expelled by the police.

The natural preoccupation with the terrible epidemic may account for the scant news coverage given to the abortion death of Miss Mary Lareau of Denver. Miss Helen Stoughton and Mrs. A. DeFoe, whose professions were not given, were arrested in her death. The 1918 Denver City Directory shows a Miss Helen Stoughton working as a waitress in Denver.

Geneology records indicate that Mary was the unmarried daughter of Franscois and Mary (Bauer) Lareau, and was born December 26, 1902 in St. Mary's, Kansas. This would have made her only 15 years old at the time of her death.

Note, please, that with issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919]. For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion] Source: "Pithy News Notes from All Parts of Colorado", //San Juan Prospector//, November 22, 1918

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